


Subtle Like a Lion’s Cage

by aactionjohnny



Series: EraserJoke [1]
Category: My Hero Academia, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Denial of Feelings, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, argument, eraserjoke, eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:40:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22303519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aactionjohnny/pseuds/aactionjohnny
Summary: Ketsubutsu is under construction, so the students are staying at UA. Unfortunately for Aizawa, that also means Ms. Joke will be around.They’ve been dancing around each other for years. He’s running out of the will to pretend there’s nothing there, and she’s tired of him being cruel. It seems they can avoid it no longer.
Relationships: Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead/Fukukado Emi | Ms. Joke
Series: EraserJoke [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1609717
Comments: 29
Kudos: 221





	1. An Honest Woman

**Author's Note:**

> Henlo I am taking a break from my career writing to have a little fun. This may eventually turn NSFW if it feels right.
> 
> Title is from Interpol’s “Not Even Jail” of the album “Antics,” which is incredible.

The wide windows could not protect him from the cold air, even as the sun shone through the glass. It seemed brighter than ever, glaring, making him squint out at the horizon that morning, his tea forgotten on the nearby table. He sighed, heavy as ever, and took a brief respite from the day, shutting his eyes, shutting out the world. It would not be a quiet day. There would be no quiet days, not for a while.

With Ketsubutsu Academy undergoing heavy renovations, the faculty elected to put up their students in the UA dorms for a while. The principal, too kind, had agreed immediately. The reactions from the student body ranged from excitement to near-violent protest. Shouta kept his mouth shut. It was all politics; they had to keep up the appearance that their schools’ rivalry wasn’t too deep. Just enough to entertain, not enough to draw blood.

He heard her loud, cheery voice from the hallway beyond, and allowed himself the privilege of one last eye roll before it began.

“You’ll all be doubling up rooms,” Joke piped on, walking backwards before her crowd of students, her arms spread to show off the architecture. “If I know their teacher, and I do, these kids will be good roomies. He’s a real hard-ass!”

He stood still, in the center of the room, hands in his pockets. Her students stifled their giggling and pretended not to see him. She backed right into him and let out an amused yelp. “Speak of the devil!”

“Joke.”

She put on a serious face an imitated his tone.

“Eraser.” She giggled, grinned, spun around and faced the students, hands on Shouta’s shoulders. “This handsome gentleman, you remember him, don’t you? Mr. Aizawa!”

The students waved. He nodded and shrugged her hands off of his shoulders.

“Your dorm assignments are listed on the bulletin board over there,” he told them, looking toward the common area. “If you have any issues you come see me or Ms. Fukukado.”

They dismissed the students to go find their rooms, and she turned to him, hands behind her back, leaning forward just-so. He looked away, having long trained himself not to indulge her. She wanted him to look, to stare. To make eye contact and let her smile right through his stoicism.

“It’s still Ms. by the way, you’re right.”

“Hm.”

“Not a Mrs.”

“Yeah.”

He turned back toward the window, squinting again at the sun, and walked over to look out across the city as if it were some kind of kingdom. She followed, staying close, laying her head on his shoulder.

“Would you cut that out?” he asked, deadpan, no longer able to tell if he meant it or not. It had been years of this, the playful rivalry, his cruelty in the face of her friendliness. Years of her pretending to chase him, cruel in her own way. He was certain that if, one day, he were to respond positively to one of her propositions, she would claim it had been one big joke. He denied her like a reflex. It was easier that way. It made it feel as if those years had not been spent dancing around one another, avoiding anything sincere. Pretending.

“No,” she replied. “Not until you make an honest woman out of me.”

“Impossible.”

She snorted. He hoped it killed her that he could make her laugh. 

  
  


Already there were complaints. He stood against the wall outside of Mineta’s dorm room, his arms folded and his eyes struggling to stay open.

“I don’t wanna room with Mineta,” Bakugou spat. “Do you have any idea how many dirty magazines I’ve already seen?”

“I’ll confiscate them,” Shouta offered, much to Mineta’s protests. “Would you rather be with a visiting student, Bakugou? I doubt that would make you any happier.”

“Whatever. Just take his porno and leave me alone.” He stormed back into the room and laid face-down on the air mattress he’d set up on the floor. Shouta groaned quietly and headed into the room, standing firmly above Mineta’s bed.

“Give up the stash,” he commanded, holding out a hand. 

“Unfair!”

“I don’t give a damn. It’s distracting you from your studies.”

Mineta pouted and climbed off the bed, pulling out a box from underneath, filled to the brim with nudie mags.

“I’m already gonna be distracted. All those girls from Ketsubutsu…” 

Shouta swore he saw some drool forming.

“And Ms. Joke…” Mineta went on, his eyes glossing over.

“What about her?” Shouta asked, his voice turning grim, grim and threatening enough that even Bakugou raised his head from his mattress to look.

“Come  _ on _ Mr. Aizawa, she’s a total babe!” Mineta said. “One look at her and I’m—“

Shouta dropped the box of porn on the floor and leaned down, pressing one pale finger into the center of Mineta’s forehead.

“If I hear you talk like that about her again I’ll suspend you,” he promised. “Show some respect.” 

Bakugou laughed at his expense.

“And you,” he said, turning. “Try not to fight anyone unless so instructed.”

He shut the door behind him and carried the heavy box in his arms, unsure of where to put it. He had a contraband closet in the basement, but he would feel weird hanging onto all of...this. Maybe he should just burn it.

He heard footsteps from behind, two sets, and turned to see Joke walking arm-in-arm with one of her female students.

“—and then I said, ‘Debtor? I hardly know ‘er!’” Joke said, forcing the student into a fit of laughter. “And that’s how I ended up getting out of a bad deal with a loan shark.”

Shouta frowned.

“Helping to create an entire new generation of dishonest people?”

“Would you unclench?” she teased. They were getting close, and he looked down wide-eyed at his parcel. “You’ve just—“ Joke stopped short, staring too, a boisterous smile crawling onto her face, laughter threatening to erupt from her every pore. “Eraser—“ she struggled to say. “—I know I get you all hot n’ bothered but  _ really _ …” Before he could stop her, she nicked one of the magazines off the top of the pile.

“These aren’t mine—“

“Ooh…” She let the magazine fall open, revealing a young woman in a schoolgirl outfit. “This what you’re into? Want me to borrow a pleated skirt?”

“I confiscated these from a student, Joke.” He kept his face stern and even, trying to Will his cheeks not to flush. “I implore you to put that back and be serious.”

“I know, I know, Eraser. That pervy little one, right?”

“The same.”

“If he gives my girls any trouble you tell me, okay?”

“I’m perfectly capable of punishing him myself.”

“Ooh…” She tossed the magazine back into the box. “Maybe  _ I  _ should misbehave.”

“Ms. Fukukado—“ her student gasped, a hand over her mouth to stifle more laughter.

“Oh, it’s okay,” she assured her. “He’s a grumpy-guss but he’s not gonna tell on me. Just like I won’t tell on him for his box of porn.”

He gave her one final eye roll and kept walking. She and her student turned and went back the other way, and he, foolish and unable to help himself, turned his head to watch her go. Annoying. Frustrating and infuriating. It was going to be a loud few months.

But still, as he dropped off the deplorable box at the contraband closet, he felt a familiar warmth in his chest that one only got from the fondness of a friend. That, and the agonizing schoolboy feeling he always tried to ignore when he saw her. 

He locked the door to the closet when he left, then leaned against it and sighed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be from Emi’s perspective but still 3rd person


	2. This Charming Man

She tossed her suitcase onto the twin-sized bed. Her superiors had denied giving her a stipend to rent a real apartment in the area, so she was stuck feeling like a student again. Hm, maybe she  _ would _ go get a school uniform.

Away from any eyes, she pulled her bandana from her head and tied her minty-green hair up in a loose bun atop her head. She’d never show it, but that thing managed to give her a headache after a while. But it was best to stay on brand. Fans didn’t usually like a sudden change in uniform.

She caught herself in the mirror and was calmed by her relaxed appearance. It would probably be the last time for a while that she actually got any real downtime, considering the rough semester ahead. She haphazardly stuffed her clothes into the dresser and laid on her bed with her notebook, brainstorming jokes. 

She was distracted. She was always distracted when he was nearby. She played it off like she was some sort of ravenous maneater, pursuing him so desperately, taking every opportunity to flirt and make him roll his tired eyes. She sighed and rolled onto her side, and thought about having a nap. She thought about having a nap with him.  _ What do you call a sleeping child? A kid-napping!  _ Not her best.  _ What do you call a lovesick jester? An idiot _ . She groaned.

It would be easy just to seduce him, to pounce. She knew she was a looker. She got constant fan mail full of marriage proposals and unsolicited photos. She was ranked on those stupid, sexist lists that reduced her fellow women to mere numbers. She remembered seeing a list like that for the men.  _ Most eligible bachelors.  _ They couldn’t even find a picture of Eraser smiling to put in it. At least she wasn’t the only one who failed at that.

But it would be so, so easy to be honest with him, wouldn't it? To march right up to him and say, without irony:  _ you and I should boink _ . God, even in her imagination she can’t be serious. Still, she chuckled at the possibility. At the idea of him saying  _ yes _ ,  _ finally,  _ and taking her to bed.

But he was too much of a jerk. She could imagine it all she wanted, but he was incapable of being soft. Of loving.

She groaned again and got out of bed, trudging over to the window. Out in the cold courtyard, she saw him, sitting paternally next to young Midoriya, a comforting hand on his shoulder. Maybe he was a sweet man, but just not to her. Maybe he was capable of caring, but just not about her.

“I gotta stop being so gloomy,” she scolded herself. “Maybe it’s the weather.” 

By the next day, her smile had returned. She met him in the morning, as he was just arriving, drowning in a big puffy jacket. Adorable.

She sauntered, like dancing, up to him, and grabbed either side of his hood with her hands.

“Want an Eskimo kiss?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

“No. A cup of tea would be nice.” He shook her off and she put on her most charming pout. “Sorry.” A rare apology. “It’s not your job to make tea.”

“More of a wifely duty, don’t you think?” she asked, following him to the kitchenette, watching him shrug the coat from his shoulders. She hoisted herself up onto the counter as he set up the kettle.

“Get your ass off of the kitchen counter,” he chided, though he sounded too tired to really mean it.

“Where I put my ass is none of your business.”

“I guess not.”

He stifled a yawn. She could tell.

“You need to sleep more,” she said.

“I’m fine,” he insisted.

“Aw, don’t lie now.” She leaned over and began to rub one of his shoulders, kneading her fingers into it. “You just gotta relax one night.”

“Hm.”

She was pleased that he made no attempt to swat her hand away. It was so rare that he didn’t immediately shut down any measure of her affection, and it caught her off guard a bit. She bit her lip.

“Would you…” she trailed off. “We could relax. Together.”

He stopped making his tea.

“Joke…”

“I’ve got one for you, listen.”

“What is it?”

She slid off the counter and stood behind him, daring to settle her dainty hands on his back.

“Knock knock.”

“I’m not doing this,” he insisted.

“Knock knock!” she pestered, leaning her head between his shoulder blades. He sighed.

“Who’s there?”

“Someone.”

“Seriously? That’s the joke?”

“Just play along.”

“Fine. Someone who?”

“Someone who…” She faltered. She chickened out.  _ Someone who loves you _ . Even if she meant it, he would never believe her. “Someone who knows you’re ticklish!” She roughly tapped her fingers against his ribcage, squealing in delight when he shivered.

“I am  _ not,”  _ he protested, playful and childish. He took her hands and pulled them from his waist, then turned around to face her. 

They were very close. The kitchenette was dimly lit, and they were alone. His eyes looked so sleepy, more than usual. She chickened out again.  _ Why did this chicken cross the road? In the hopes she would get hit by a car and put out of her misery! _

Just then, a shadow was cast over them, and they saw Uraraka standing in the doorway, looking scandalized. Eraser all but shoved her away, his gaze focused on Uraraka, who was covering her mouth.

“D-don’t let me interrupt…” she squealed, and then shuffled awkwardly over to the cabinet to retrieve a box of cereal.

“You interrupted nothing, Uraraka,” Eraser insisted, grabbing his teacup and heading for the door. 

Emi’s chest fluttered, bursting with the truth she so suddenly wanted to burden this poor girl with. But she decided against it.

“Really. It was nothing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter hhhh
> 
> They are cute


	3. Stormy Weather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shouta gets ahead of the rumors. Emi has an idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Updates 3 times) listen it’s a slow work day

Teaching proved to be quite difficult that day, what with Uraraka staring at him like she knew something. She was a little too transparent in her curiosity, and he shot her a stern glance when he caught her whispering to Yaoyorozu. Great. It was bad enough having Joke loudly proclaim that she wanted him, he didn’t need any further rumors spreading. He rolled his eyes when he saw both girls giggle, and went back to his reading, waiting for them to finish their in-class writing.

After class, he caught her by the shoulder before she could leave so that they could talk.

“Am I in trouble?” she asked, the terror in her voice more tremulous than he’d heard from her, even in the midst of battle.

“That depends on you,” he told her. He raised his eyebrows, awaiting a response, knowing she was clever enough to know what he was talking about. 

“I haven’t said anything about you and Ms. Fukukado.”

“There’s nothing to  _ say, _ so good.”

Uraraka gripped her books to her chest and smiled coyly, refusing to meet his eyes.

“Yessir,” she said, quiet and girlish, and he frowned. Before he could gather the strength to scold her any more, poor girl, she high-tailed it into the hallway. 

Had it looked so criminal? So compromising? He had just been standing there, in the kitchen, staring down at her in her loose-fitting pajamas, hair all knotted from sleep, her skin the pale, soft color of waking up...Shit. Maybe he had some dreamy look in his eyes, maybe it was just hard to see two people pressed close like that and  _ not _ assume that something was going on. Uraraka was a teenager, no doubt bursting with hormones and ideas about storybook romance. Of course she would project onto him and Joke. That was all.

But it was just a little bit sweet, the few moments he allowed it to happen. Just being near her, objectively stunning, dabbling in the comfortable of unfamiliar domesticity of making tea, of touching softly. The facade almost cracked, that morning. She almost, he could tell, dropped her banter. And he almost let himself smile. He was treading on dangerous ground. 

It was not the first time he’d been so close to making a mistake with her. So many times he’d been frustrated and just wanted to shut her up, maybe for hours. So many times the light had hit her in just such a way and she seemed to transform before him into something other-worldly. So many times he’d seen her fall asleep while working, and laid a blanket over her shoulders… He was glad not to have to be near her all the time anymore, but now…

Now she slept here. He was thankful to live off-campus, that there would be no hour in the middle of the night where he could allow himself to be tempted, spurred on to get out of bed and make his way to her door. What would he even say?  _ Sometimes you make me so mad I could kiss you. _

The wind howled outside, carrying the first few snowflakes of the season. He checked the weather forecast, noting that they were supposed to get upwards of a foot of snow. He should probably go home early to beat it, his quirk didn’t do anything to help get him through the weather.

“Eraser!” She arrived curling around his doorway. “Big snow storm.”

“I heard.”

“I was thinking…”

He looked at her blankly. Her thinking was always potentially dangerous.

“Class-on-class snowball fight.”

“You’re joking.”

“For once, no!” She skipped over to him, and he looked away, desperate not to look at the way she seemed to bounce and float. “It’ll be good for them. They can let off some steam.  _ You  _ can let off some steam.”

He parted his lips with something suggestive on his tongue, but he buried it.

“I’m gonna pummel you.”

She read the rules through a megaphone.

“No quirks! No cheating! Classic capture-the-flag rules! If you get hit, go back to the starting line!”

The students, looking serious and prepared, all nodded.

“This is a terrible idea,” he said through his teeth, and she smacked him on the arm. 

“You’re saying that because you don’t want to lose.”

After the two teams had retreated back to their bases, teachers following, he heard her blow the whistle from across the quad. His class set off running, and he sighed, wondering if he should just sit it out. But he’d promised her a pummeling. He decided to take the long, stealthy route toward the flag instead of going in headfirst. 

The snow was cold, leaking even through his thick boots and freezing his toes. Miserable. Why had he agreed to this? Oh, right, because he was a weak, weak man. Because she had smiled at him, further chipping away at the wall he’d built between them. Because he was so, so lonesome. Because maybe, if he could hit her in the face with a snowball, it would let out some of that tension.

He wandered through the growing blizzard, ceasing to really pay attention, hearing the distant sounds of shouting and screaming and cheering. Maybe it hadn’t been a  _ terrible  _ idea…

He came upon a dark spot in the pure white snow, and squinted on his approach.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, seeing Joke there, arms and legs spread and flapping.

“Snow angel,” she told him, sticking out her tongue, waiting for snowflakes.

“What happened to the fight?” he asked, looking down at her.

“I trust my students to kick ass without me.”

He watched her for a moment, how she smiled as she dug her limbs into the snow, how the flakes melted once they touched her skin, how she looked so small under all that winter gear. He fought a smile that threatened to twitch upon his lips.

“You look like an idiot,” he told her. Without warning, she raised one leg and kicked his own out from under him, causing him to trip over her and fall face-first into the snow. She immediately erupted into raucous laughter, and he rolled over onto his back, grumbling.

“You kinda asked for that, Eraser.”

He laid there, letting his body sink into the snow. There was a certain peace to it. Like the feeling you get before you die of frostbite. Laying next to her, there was just as much danger. He could doom himself if he inched a little closer, pressed a gloved hand to her cheek…

He felt the distinct sting of a snowball behind pressed into his forehead.

“ _ Joke—“ _

But she was already on the move, running into the fog to celebrate her small victory.

Later, they sat by the fire in the common area as a group. The snow was thick and fearsome, and he would not be making it home that evening. Eventually, curfew hit, and he and Joke sent the students off to their rooms.

“That was a cheap shot, Joke.”

“Oh, come on,” she chided, curling her legs beneath her on the couch, holding close her cup of tea to her chest. Her nose was a little red, her skin still prickling from the cold. “You had fun.”

“For a few minutes, yeah,” he said, without filtering himself. A few minutes, yes, of laying quietly on the ground next to her. A few minutes of watching her make a snow angel, and how sweet she looked, how innocent despite how much he knew she was not.

He stoked the fire. It ought to make him sleepy, but it just made him want to stay up late. He was struck with an idea.

“Wait here,” he said, and she dramatically saluted him. He made a rude gesture with his hand and she cackled. As he descended into the basement, an uncharacteristic anxiety settled it. This was probably a worse idea than the snowball fight, but he was already down here.

He skirted by the massive box of pornography, trying not to look lest he become...inspired, and grabbed an old dusty bottle of liquor he’d confiscated last school year. He brought it back upstairs and set it on the table.

“What’s this?” she asked, intrigued.

“A little contraband.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aizawa bout 2 get TURNT
> 
> Jk not really
> 
> Love you


	4. R & R

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got out of work early, came home and had a drink--
> 
> et voila

Her brow shot up at the sight of him standing there, devilish, with his bottle of confiscated liquor. She formed a circle with her lips to show her bewilderment.

“My, my,” she said, sitting up a little straighter. “Where was this troublemaker back in the day?”

“Don’t push it, Joke,” he said gruffly, his voice like gravel, but somehow soothing in its familiarity. “Had no one to drink with lately.”

“Ah, I see. I’m your backup.”

“Hm.” He untwisted the cap and took a sip. She could see by his squinting that it burned, and was probably cheap. Made sense, considering it had belonged to a student. He passed her the bottle.

She pouted as she let her lips hover above the mouth of the bottle, knowing the tricks, the wiles, the ways to seduce a man, and that none of them worked on Shouta Aizawa. But she found she could not help herself. He always made her lose her resolve, which was probably why she acted out so much. Making dramatic proclamations of love and spur-of-the-moment proposals-- all to hide the real thing. She took too generous a sip and grimaced.

“That’s awful.” But she did enjoy the swiftness with which it made her head spin. “But you know what they say…”

He turned only his eyes to her, a flat affect, apparently bracing himself for the inevitable.

“Beer is cheap, but liquor is quicker!”

“I think it’s fair to say this is cheap, too.”

Another failed attempt. Sometimes she was sure the only way she could get him to smile would be to press her fingers into the sides of his mouth and push them up herself. But he was so skittish at her touch, sometimes. Except for that morning, in the kitchenette...And wasn’t this just perfect? Awful weather, trapping them. A roaring fire and social lubricant. It was not the first time she’d found herself in this predicament with him; you work with someone long enough, you were bound to end up drunk with them at some point. But each time, just when she mustered up the courage to be sincere, he’d either fallen asleep or left for bed alone.

She watched as he tipped his head back to take a healthy swig. He no longer seemed so bothered by the taste. The gruffness of his sighing, the stubble on his face...it looked right. He looked like the sort of man to sit sadly by the fire, exhausted but hesitant to sleep. She wanted to promise not to draw on his face in marker, that he should rest, that he should lay his head in her lap for a while, and let her run fingers through his hair...he passed her the bottle again and she wrapped her hands around its neck.

“...what?” he asked, noting her sudden reticence. Too perceptive. Maybe he already knew. 

She collected her knees to her chest, holding the bottle between her legs. 

“Nothin’...” 

He did not engage any further, much to her pouting. But their heads were feeling light, and the fire was pleasant. She decided not to be angry, because it was such a perfect night otherwise. 

He allowed himself to yawn, and she bit her lip, watching as he let his guard down, feeling her chest blossoming in affection as so sweet a sight. She decided to be daring.

“You should sleep, Shouta…”

He blinked to hear his name spoken, and so softly, sincerely.

“I can’t go home,” he reminded her, nodding his head toward the gathering snow. It was climbing the glass doors. 

“I know,” she said, and then she adjusted her position. “I just…” She smoothed out her pajamas, making a flat, welcoming plane of her lap. “I just want you to rest.”

He eyed her, taking his gaze from her face, to the bottle, to her lap. He gulped, and his nervousness thrilled her. 

“Is this a prank?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die!”

“...’kay.” Perhaps too enthusiastically, he made to lay down, resting the back of his head on her legs. She released an unfortunate, accidental, libidinal sigh, but he paid her no mind. He settled in, draping his legs over the armrest and folding his hands over his chest. He must be fairly drunk, she thought. Maybe his tolerance had suffered, being so busy lately…

She settled her palm on his forehead, and dragged it back over his hair. A little greasy and unkempt, but she found herself charmed. 

“Don’t braid my hair while I sleep…” he said, opening one eye, knowing how often she was up to no good.

“Aw, but you’d look so cute!”

He did not reproach her. He smiled, though just a little. 

He fell asleep in her lap, and she soothed herself into slumber by stroking his hair, gently taking out the day’s knots. 

When she woke up, it was morning, and he was gone.

It was Saturday, and she felt that the students deserved just a little more time to unwind. Thus, in order to distract herself from how her heart ached for just a little more of that sweet, quiet romance with Shouta, she tried to rally some of the girls to have a makeover day in her room. To her disappointment, the only people who came were Uraraka and a reluctant Yaoyorozu, dragged along by the arm. But it would have to do. 

“You girls are too cute already, what am I supposed to do?” 

They giggled, and Uraraka ran her hand along the table, looking at the nail polish selection.

“Maybe just an exfoliating mask,” she said.

“I brought cucumber slices, like they do on TV,” Yaoyorozu said, holding up a plastic sandwich bag. “For our eyes…”

Emi burst out laughing.

“We spend so much time around boys, working so hard to be heroes, we forget how to be girly, don’t we?”

The girls nodded. 

“Well...let’s forget them for a couple of hours, okay? I’ve got some hot towels for your shoulders, and some nice relaxing music.”

“It’s...hard to forget about boys,” Uraraka said, looking coyly at the corner of the room.

“Tell me about it,” Emi said, offhandedly and without thinking.

“Oh, like you and Mr. Aizawa.”

Emi heard the girl gasp at her own misstep, and then heard Yaoyorozu gasp too, as if just hearing about it for the first time.

“Wh...what about him?” Emi asked, trying her best to sound clueless.

“W-well…” Uraraka grabbed one of the towels and pressed it to her forehead. “Oh god, I’m gonna get suspended…” She seemed close to hyperventilating, or at the very least floating up to the ceiling. Yaoyorozu held her by the shoulders.

“It’s okay, Ochako,” she cooed. “You’re too good of a student for suspension.”

“I saw him sleeping in your lap--” Uraraka went on. “--and in the morning, in the kitchen--”

Emi weighed her options. Shouta would be furious if she indulged the girls in a little gossip, but then again, when was he not at least a little bit angry? She gave denial one more try, though.

“I don’t know  _ what _ you’re talking about,” she insisted.

The girls seemed sated by that answer, which frustrated her. She was bursting at the seams with girlish adoration, desperate to tell  _ someone _ , if she couldn’t tell him, how she felt.

“Aughh--” she groaned, sat on the floor, and then laid on her back, kicking her feet. “Fine! Okay? I wanna kiss him and I wanna have his babies! Are you happy!?”

“Ms. Fukukado--”

“If you tell him I’ll-- I’ll--”

“We won’t tell him,” Yaoyorozu promised, resolute and serious. “It’s not our business playing matchmaker.”

Emi sat up, surprised by the girl’s tone.

“Awh-- Momo!” Uraraka protested. “We should do something. Mr. Aizawa seems so lonely…”

“He’s a grown man. He can figure out his own love life.”

Emi snorted.

“Are you serious? He couldn’t flirt his way out of a paper bag. At least, not on purpose…”

She jested, but there was some solemnity in her voice. Uraraka sighed, and Yaoyorozu followed suit. Both girls sat by her side. Yaoyorozu laid one of the steaming towels on Emi’s neck. Uraraka ran a boar bristle brush through her hair.

“He’ll come around,” Uraraka said, a promise with no basis. “You’re lovely, and he’s...well--”

“He’s Mr. Aizawa,” Yaoyorozu said, and they all chuckled. 

“God, yeah, he is, isn’t he?” Emi asked, exasperated. “...thanks, girls.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think? I love them...


	5. Baby, You Just Make Me Mad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whadaya know my husband and i were getting ready this morning and he put on "Antics" like he read my gd mind
> 
> i implore you to listen, it's a very aizawa album

He’d awoken in the middle of the night to the sound of a plow roaring past the building, and had slowly opened his eyes to an alarming view. Her hair cascading over her perfect chest, her face smiling even in sleep, and he panicked. He sat up, careful not to wake her, and ran a hand down the back of his head, smoothing out the hair he’d knotted up in her lap. A quick look around the room granted him the safety of not having been seen in a position so compromising. 

He grabbed the half-empty bottle from the table and tucked it, closed tight, beneath his arm. He gave her one last glance.

He felt, how rare, well-rested, as if the closeness of her skin had granted him some measure of peace. And his head spun, not even from a hangover, but from the knowledge that she had held his head through the night, and that perhaps he muttered in his sleep all the things he refused to admit. 

He left for the walk home, through the newly-plowed streets, thinking of her, and despising himself for leaving.

  
  


He spent the weekend at home, pacing around his apartment, talking quietly to himself between lesson planning, trying to shape the words that might do it all justice.

“I hate you sometimes, but I woke up and I looked at you and it was like--” he mumbled, and then buried his head in his hands. “Fuck.” He was not the sort of man to make grand proclamations of love, or of any kind, for that matter. He always used his words sparingly, with great economy and logic.

And this didn’t make enough sense for him. 

By Monday morning, he’d made no progress, and slept very little. It had been a wasted two days, when he could have just called her, could have just gone to her, could have slept beside her and shook off his lonesomeness in her arms. Now he was just being poetic. It drove him crazy. She drove him crazy, to the point of flowery language and overwhelming sweetness.

As he approached the building, he found himself wishing she would do something to piss him off enough to remind him why he felt so annoyed by her in the first place. That, or that she would make one of her ridiculous proposals, so that he could have the chance to throw her off--  _ yes, let’s date. Let’s get married. You asked _ .

Was he losing his mind? Maybe he’d never had it to begin with. He tried to imagine a lifetime of her, and winced. But he tried to imagine one evening with her, and he swooned. A fleeting attraction, maybe. She was astoundingly beautiful, after all. He could not help but imagine how her boisterous personality might translate in his bed. Or in a supply closet. Or against a wall in the dark.

Goddammit. 

He wasn’t given a chance to breathe before she was before him like an apparition, grinning as if he hadn’t so cruelly left her alone just a few days before.

“Hey stranger,” she cooed. “Where are my flowers?”

“Hn?”

“You owe me a big fat apology,” she insisted, hooking her arm into his and pulling him through the foyer like a dance. He eased into a familiar sigh, ever-ready to tell her she was being irrational or presumptuous. But she leaned her head on his shoulder, gifting him with the sweet, floral scent of her hair. He looked down, sidelong, at how her folded arms pushed her breasts together, how her dancers’ ankles turned as she walked along the floor. He gulped.

“I suppose I do.”

She lifted her head and looked at him, wide-eyed.

“That was a surprise.”

“Why?” He knew why.

She slipped her arm from his and faced him, cocking her head to the side. Her lips parted, the smile curling, and then dissipating. The somberness of her face was devastating.

“...you’re usually so mean, Shouta.” 

It cut through him like a knife, her pouty voice, the desperate loneliness he felt radiating from her like so much absent laughter and joy. He could have done it, then. He could have taken her by the waist, kissed her like a man so different. He could have chosen to never be cruel again, save for their most secret moments, when he could reduce her to a begging, sweating shell of a woman hanging on by just the spinning thread of his hands and tongue--

But, like always, she beat him to the punch with something absurd.

“If you don’t apologize to me, then I’ll never marry you!” she told him, turning up her nose.

Infuriating. He was torn in so many directions, then. To storm off. To be sweet. To throw her over his shoulder and carry her off to ravish her. 

But for all his bravery, he was still a coward. He looked her up and down. His mouth felt dry, empty, longing to be filled with her and one-thousand silly words to say just how he felt, however that was. He was afraid of so many things, all of them to do with her. What if she denied him? What if she laughed in his face? What if she became someone so awful, even though right then she seemed so perfect? There was no rubric nor logic nor reasoning to bring him to a definite conclusion. There was just her, wilting before him, waiting for a response.

He sighed and lowered his shoulders.

“I’m sorry I left.”

“That’s a start.”

“We were both a little drunk.”

“I would have asked regardless.”

“You ask a lot of things from me, Emi.”

The banter screeched to a halt, and he felt gutted and remorseful.

“I guess so,” she said, folding her arms, all semblance of cheer now dissolved entirely. “Well. I won’t ask you anything anymore, if it’s so difficult for you to keep saying _ no _ to me.”

“Joke--”

“Must be torturous, having someone ask you on dates all the time.”

“Come on--”

“What kind of man would want to be pursued by Hero Monthly’s #5 hottest Heroine, after all?”

He huffed, withholding any commentary about how five was far too low a number, but that lists were stupid anyway, and that she wasn’t being fair, but she just kept going, turning on her heel and storming into the corridor, throwing her hands up in the air.

“Silly, stupid me, being tricked by how you look like you could drool over me when you think no one is looking! By our years-long friendship and how s-sometimes…”

She lowered her hands to her sides and balled them into fists.

“...sometimes you’re the only person I really want to be near, Eraser. But you just don’t want me.”

Stunned, he stood in the foyer, growing dizzy, his throat desperately bursting with so many things to say, none of them fit to fix the situation. She disappeared into the shadows, and still he had done nothing. What held him back, he couldn’t be sure. Pride? Maybe, but he wasn’t the sort of man to have an ego. Anger? He had run out of the energy to be angry with her. She was exhausting. 

He was afraid. He had not allowed himself to love anyone in a very long time. The risk was far too great. But the reward...he made to follow after her, but the morning bell rang loud above his head.

Duty before all else. Hopefully he hadn’t fucked up too badly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :,,,) i like crying and being sad
> 
> SHOUTA YOU HEADASS WHY ARE U SUCH A DINGUS god he's so thirsty i want to pour ice water on him but that freaky bih would probably just enjoy it
> 
> i hope you like this! i tried to work on the novel today but it just......wasn't happening. time to drown my sorrows in more of this and maybe another wine spritzer.
> 
> lmk what u think <3


	6. Punch Drunk Love

She took her class to the boxing gym for the day, her mind too addled and distressed to deal with teaching.

“We are going to be beating the shit out of each other today,” she said, pulling on some gloves. “Because I said so, and because being a hero isn’t just about mastering a quirk. You can’t--” She paused, gulped, hating how every little thing she said seemed to bring him to mind. “You can’t always rely on it. Circumstances change and sometimes you won’t be able to use it.”

She ordered them to pair up, and chose the burliest, strongest student to spar with on her own.

She sparred in a complete fugue state, blinded by rage and sorrow and sweat and yearning. She felt just a little bit better, a little bit satisfied, after getting to punch a young man repeatedly, even if it wasn’t the right one.

“Good job, you guys,” she said. “Now go study. Don’t want you to feel too...boxed in!”

The students groaned, and she relished in the reaction. But he would have groaned, too. He always did. Her chances to make him smile and laugh were all used up, because he had been an asshole, and she had been a bit of an asshole too.

She tore off her gloves and tossed them aside, then took a seat on the steps that led up to the ring. She wouldn’t cry. Not because she didn’t want to, but because years spent laughing and smiling had made it very difficult.

The door creaked open and she hated how she wished it was him.

It was Uraraka and Yaoyorozu, dressed in gym clothes, coming to train after hours. She didn’t want to have to tell them that they’d been wrong, and their teacher did _ not  _ come around, and that he did  _ not _ submit to his lonesomeness for her sake.

“Ms. Fukukado!” Uraraka squeaked, running forward. “You’ve gotta tell us what happened.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, leaning her head in her hand.

“Um, well…” She put her fingers to her chin. “Mr. Aizawa came into class today and said we were getting a philosophy lesson, which was already weird--”

“--and then,” Yaoyorozu went on, “--he wrote the word ‘nihilism’ in capital letters on the chalkboard--”

“--and he told us to write a three page paper on why nothing matters--”

“--and then Bakugou complained but Mr. Aizawa said he ‘didn’t have the energy’ to give him detention.”

Emi snorted. So he was suffering, too. She didn’t like that she felt proud because of it, but moreover she didn’t like to think of him being sad.

“That would be my fault.”

She explained the argument to them, and they nodded along. Uraraka’s eyes looked wide and wet, like she wanted to cry, but Yaoyorozu was resolute, and settled her hands on her hips.

“With all due respect, Ms. Fukukado,” she began, steeling herself. “This is idiotic. You two are doing everything you can to avoid saying how you really feel, but you’re both adults. Playing games like that is for-- well, for kids. Like us. So just…” She seemed to grow frustrated, her fists shaking and her face scrunching. “Just go tell him the truth or kiss him or something! It’s making all of us feel really awkward!”

Emi stared for a moment, stunned. That girl had spunk, even if she was being insubordinate. But after some thought, Emi just dissolved into laughter, holding her stomach as she hunched over on the steps.

“W-wow, kiddo!” she struggled to say. “You don’t fuck around, do you?”

She shook her head.

“Also I--” the girl went on. “I think you two could be great together. I want Mr. Aizawa to be happy, and you’re, well…” She shut her eyes and tucked her chin down toward her chest. “You’re so nice and pretty.”

Emi rose to her feet, ignoring her sweat-soaked skin, and wrapped her arms fully around both girls, sighing in appreciation.

“You two are going to go on to do great things,” she said, serious but kind. “And I’m not just saying that because you’re helping me get laid.” She yelped in laughter, amused by the horrified sounds they both made.

“I don’t wanna think about it--”

“I mean, he  _ is  _ handsome--”

_ “Ochako!” _

“What!? Maybe if he shaved more often--”

“Stop it!”

-

She showered and then swallowed whatever feminine pride she had left in her body, and went to buy him something stupid as an apology gift. She eventually settled on a greeting card adorned with a bunch of baby kittens, something she knew he would be soft for. It read: _ I was just kitten! Sorry! _

She signed it with a heart. 

_ All my love. Really. _

_ -your favorite Joke _

She clutched it close to her chest as she made her way back to the building, her cheeks aflame and her mind spinning, busy with words and images. How he might wrap her up in his arms, how he might get on his knees and pay her back for all the times he’d denied her. How he might sweep the paper from his desk, throw her down onto it--

She was getting ahead of herself, but it was difficult not to.  _ That man _ was capable of putting her under some sort of spell.

Outside of his office, she adjusted her bandana, and put her hand before her mouth to make sure her breath wasn’t nasty. She was immaculate as ever, ready for him, ready to tell the truth without any pretense. She knocked.

There was no answer. She knocked again, and leaned against the door, cupping a hand beside her mouth.

“Hell-oooooo?” she called. “Got a special delivery for Shouta Aizawa. He needs to sign for it. It’s um...very delicate. But he can be rough, if he wants…” She tapped her knuckles against the door a few more times, and then sighed. “Are you still mad at me?”

Silence. She turned the knob and was surprised to find it unlocked. The light was on, the desk covered in work, but he was gone.

“--the fuck?” she asked the void, and she entered, wondering if he’s just gone to the restroom or something. But it was unlike him, she knew, to leave his things unattended. He was meticulous and spare. He was a man who knew how to do things… “Oh…” she mewled a little, still caught up with the idea of his love. He had many years of frustration to get out, of course. It made her a little weak in the knees.

But still, he’d vanished. She took a look around, the worry setting in. 

At the feet of his desk chair, she saw them. His yellow goggles, left behind. He would never take them off for no reason. And if he’d been captured, well-- 

Someone either wanted him weakened, or he left them behind as a clue. She knelt down, picked them up, bringing them instinctually to her lips, smelling on them the sweat of his neck, the scent of his hair. Bringing herself out of her amorous haze, she looked at them closely. On the back, the part that would lay flush with his forehead, there was a series of numbers engraved. She assumed it was some sort of code.

“Shouta…” She was surprised by how tearful her voice sounded. She wrapped her hand tightly around the goggles, holding them to her heart. “What am I supposed to do?”

In the corner of his office, beneath the cabinets, under a pile of manila folders, she saw a safe with a numbered padlock. She tucked the goggles into her shirt, between her breasts, teasing him even in his absence, and knelt down to enter the code into the safe.

“You’re such a weirdo…” she said, wishing he could hear. “I can’t believe I love you so much. Now _ that’s  _ funny…”


	7. I Forgive You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aizawa believes in Villains rights to Shut the Fuck Up

He sat defeated at his desk, an empty sheet of paper before him, an unused pen laying by its side. Since he’d found it so difficult to say thing out loud, he thought maybe he should regress to his boyhood and try writing a letter to her instead. A love letter, like the old days before technology made it easier to date someone.

But nothing was easy with her.

He wrote a few drafts, some more explicit than others, but threw them all in the trash. On his last try, when he thought he’d nailed it, he folded it up and stuffed it in his pocket to get it out of his sight. This was childish. She seemed to be the only person capable of rendering him a complete idiot. Could he really stand a lifetime of that? Years of her magnificence and wit? He found that the smart questions didn’t matter very much to him anymore. All he could really focus on was the deep, soul-encompassing need he felt for her. There was nothing else to guide him.

He only hoped it wasn’t too late to be forgiven. 

As he slid out his chair, getting ready to search for her, he rationalized it for himself: was a risk really a risk if it’s calculated? And is love not inherently risky? There could be no avoiding it.

“Goddammit, Emi,” he said, low and growling, the shape and feeling of her name in his mouth conjuring a million daydreams. Her body, her voice. His hands desperate to touch every part of her, as if there was just not  _ enough  _ of him to take it all in. 

In his distraction, he’d not been very alert, consumed instead with steamy thoughts and professions of love. His guard was down, all heroic vigilance to the cold winter wind. He was brought out of his reverie by the sound of the window creaking open. He turned, seeing only the billowing ghost of a person in a gray hooded cloak. On instinct he activated Erasure, but got the immediate sense that this stranger had no quirk for him to eliminate. 

“Who—“

He was knocked to the ground, immediately feeling the weight of humiliation for having been taken down so easily. His mysterious assailant leaned down and grabbed for his neck, but instead of bothering to try and strangle him, pulled at his goggles to bring him back to his feet, then tore them off and threw them to the floor. 

In a blinding flash, he lost all sense. The world became nothing, and his last coherent thoughts formed the shape of a woman so beloved.

He awoke, gathering back his alertness, full of shame for his failure to protect himself. He blamed Emi, of course, for the hold she had on him.

But he was tired of being cruel to her. This was no one’s fault but his own.

His surrounding were bleak, almost comical in their traditional, dungeon-like sparsity. He sighed. Another wannabe villain that watched too many movies, trying to make a power grab by holding him hostage as if he’d not been held hostage countless times already, accomplishing nothing. 

“You can spare me a monologue,” he grumbled into the expanse of the room. “I don’t care why I’m here.”

His nonchalance, though not an act, was in part due to the certainty that he would be found if he could not manage to escape on his own. He had, months ago, had a tracking device inserted deep beneath his skin. A painful procedure that he felt was unnecessary and asking for trouble, but All Might had insisted on it as a security measure. Shouta had locked away the GPS tracker in a secure safe.

Of course, someone going into his office and finding the code hinged in the possibility of him being missed enough for someone to come looking. Maybe he shouldn’t hold his breath for a rescue.

“You mean you don’t want me to feed your ego by telling you why I want revenge?”

Shouta rolled his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. His captor emerged from the shadows, armed with Shouta’s stolen knife, his capture weapon tossed lazily over his shoulder like a feather boa.

“Not really.”

He approached him and held the knife to his chin, Shouta squirming to loosen his restraints. Even if this villain was stupid, he was very good at tying knots.

“I have an abridged version, if you like.”

“If you must…” Shouta adjusted his position, trying to at least be comfortable if he was going to be stuck here a while. 

“I’ll start from the end and work backwards. Try to follow.”

Shouta sighed and looked around, hoping to find a window, vaguely planning an escape, but unable to stop himself from thinking about Emi. Would she cry over him? Would she say  _ good riddance _ and move on.

The villain went on chattering.

“I’m going to cut your eyes out,” he said.

That, at least, was enough to make him just a little nervous. 

“So you’ll never be able to suppress anyone’s quirk ever again.”

“...why? You don’t even have one.”

“Don’t interrupt!” the villain snapped, pressing the knife a little harder into Shouta’s neck. “I  _ used _ to. And it’s your fault I don’t.”

“Erasure isn’t permanent—“

He was slashed across the face with his own knife then, and he winced and hissed at the stinging pain.

“You think I don’t know that? Years ago, I was part of a heist team. You probably don’t even remember us.”

“Nope.”

He listened, if passively, about how the man’s literal partner-in-crime was going to protect him using his quirk, but Shouta had prevented him from doing so. The resulting injury made so strong a blow to his nervous system that he was rendered unable to use his own quirk, even in the slightest way.

“Oh boo-hoo!” a divinely familiar voice called from the high, slim window. He looked up, and saw her, bending down to peer through the slit, blocking the only channel of light, her head a silhouette against the winter sun above. “Cry me a river, build a bridge over it, then jump off, why don’t you?”

The villain, still holding the knife to Shouta’s throat, turned to look at her.

“Who the hell is this bitch—“

“Hey!” she shouted. She stood back up, leaving only the narrow view of her feet. “Can someone smash this for me? So I can save him? And smash?” 

Shouta, charmed by how forward she was being, though mortified that it was probably to his students, bit the insides of his cheeks in an effort not to laugh. 

He heard a shout, someone calling upon their quirk to destroy the wall, and then it came crumbling down in a fearsome cascade. The villain, aghast, shielded himself from the debris, his grip on the knife weakening, his vigilance faltering. Shouta, seeing the opportunity, lifted his bound ankles and kicked him, knocking him easily to the floor. 

Emi climbed down into the dungeon, already pouting.

“Aw, I wanted to do that.”

“Sorry.”

“I...” She stepped over the squirming villain, who struggled to right himself, and put both her hands on Shouta’s shoulders. “I forgive you.”

God, how he wanted to show her, to take her then and there in his arms. Were it not for his students, and the fact that their job was not yet over, he might have. She cupped his cheeks, running a thumb over the split skin, her mirth melding with a loving pity. 

“Poor baby…” she cooed. He melted. The students laughed and groaned.

Below, the villain sat up and began to protest.

“I’ll cut both your eyes out! Both of you!”

“Would you shut the hell up?” Shouta said, collecting Emi’s waist in his hands. Even through the stinging wound and the aching in his joints, he found himself overwhelmed with a desire years in the making.

Once the man had been processed and arrested, Emi led Shouta by the hand to a quiet corner of the street above. From her satchel she pulled a small bottle of disinfectant and a gauze pad. 

“Might hurt a bit,” she told him, gentle as he’d ever heard her. She dabbed at the cut as if he were made of paper. He wasn’t sure anyone had ever touched him with such care. As she cleaned his wound, he stared in a daze at her focused face.

“You’re adorable,” he mumbled.

“Did he drug you or something?”

“I mean it.”

She grinned then, and leaned to wrap her arms around his neck, planting a poorly-aimed kiss on his head, nuzzling her nose into his hair, squeezing him to near suffocation. He curled his toes in his boots, feeling the weight and curve of her, and settled his own arms around her back.

“It’s almost like you were worried about me,” he said, finally parrying to her years of teasing.

“I was,” she said sincerely. “But that guy was a joke.”

“That’s high praise coming from you.”

“Ooh, but if he had cut your eyes out I’d have been real mad,” she said in a childish voice, pinching his uninjured cheek. 

He kissed her then, away from the chaos of the arrest. Soft, on her ever-pouting lips, as if trying her on, feeling it out. As if shy and young, like he used to be, before he had the guts. He surrounded her face and neck with his long, thin fingers, and she seemed to tilt into him as if rendered powerless. 

His ears, his toes, all numb with the exhilarating joy of brand-new love and well-aged lust. He allowed his eyes to flutter open briefly, to pull away and look upon the flustered mess he hoped to have made her, and in the distance he saw two familiar young faces peering around the wall.

“Crap—“

Emi turned to look, her eyes wide and worried, but she smiled and waved as if nothing was amiss. Uraraka and Yaoyorozu evaporated into giggling, and scurried away like mice.

“I’m sure there’s some kind of rule against this,” he said, remorsefully.

“Maybe,” she tittered. “I find I can’t care right now.”

“Hm…” He kissed her again, too thrilled to care either. “We have a lot to talk about.”

“It can wait,” she said, throaty and low. She settled her hands on his chest, looking wounded as if, if she didn’t get her way, she would weep. She made a sad little face, and then bit her lip. 

“Wh—“

She leaned forward to whisper in his steaming ear.

“I’ve got a real good joke for you,” she promised. “Have you ever heard of the beast with two backs?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you think he’ll be reprimanded for getting captured bc he was horny
> 
> I mean it happens to all of us
> 
> More soon!
> 
> Edit: dang I wish it was ok to write porn at work
> 
> Another edit: it’s David Lynch’s birthday so it feels right to get Eraserhead some booty


	8. Get In My Bed, I Wanna Kill You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nsfw
> 
> I feel very Galaxy Brain when I write pornography. God is working through me.
> 
> Chapter title is from the song “Metal Now” by Say Anything, and it’s a very Them song.

She felt herself pulsating. As if, by the slightest touch, she might come undone entirely. Even as she held him by the wrist, dragging him back to her room like prey to eat, she felt her legs quaking in anticipation, in the expectant heat of just  _ knowing _ she was about to have him.

And she kept looking back, as if he might disappear. She delighted in the stunned look on his face, how a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He had no idea what he was in for, no matter how many times he might have thought about it.

Once inside, he wrapped his arms around her again, pushing her back into the closed door, and she laughed at how it creaked and slammed. It wasn’t as though everyone didn’t already know what they were up to, but she thought maybe some measure of discretion would be wise. Even if she wanted to squeal in delight at how desperately he kissed her, how ravenous his hands seemed, pulled her shirt up, pulling her shorts down. 

She stopped him, grabbing his wrists, and he looked at her in so tender a way, as if ready to apologize for being too forward, too rough. She shook her head and grinned, pushing him expressly toward the bed, and he stumbled backwards obediently, landing on his back with a grunt.

It felt so teenage, straddling a guy on this twin sized bed. She giggled as she climbed him, lowering her body down onto him, running her hands over him, beneath his shirt, admiring the dark hair of his abdomen.

She bit her bottom lip, and decided to be bold. Bolder still, that she was already being. She held the hem of her shirt in her dainty fingers and pulled it up, revealing the curved plane of her breasts, nipples stiff and pink, and she tried not to be too proud of herself for the way he cursed under his breath at the sight of her.

He reached up, his brow knitting in awe, and touched them, reverent and slow, as if in careful study. She felt him stiffen between her thighs, and she let out a low, knowing hum.

She ran her hands down his ribs, over his hips, and started to pull at the waistband, trying to finally see, after all this time, what he’d do selfishly been keeping from her. She heard a strange little crinkling noise, and felt in his pocket for a folded-up piece of paper.

“Oh—“ he said, grabbing for it, but she kept it out of his hands.

“What’s this?” she asked, still bare-chested as she unfolded and read it. She could feel her features melt as she took it all in. Sweet and dirty words. Everything he was too much of a coward to say out loud, and she felt herself get wet between the legs. “Oh my god…”

“It’s stupid—“

“No,” she said, and she dropped her hands back down to his hips, still holding the letter in her fingers. She watched him, watching her, how his eyes, usually so dead, traced her so carefully and lovingly. “I’m gonna read it again!” she said, back to her old ways, and she dove down to lay beside him, leaving herself half-undressed, leaving him twitching and yearning.

“Emi…” he growled, rolling onto his side, settling a hand on her lithe waist, descending upon her chest with a wet, circling tongue. She shivered. He suckled at her, soft and hard and desperate and gentle, as she read again and again.

_ Emi— _

_ I think I love you and that makes me so, so angry. Sometimes I just want to bend you over or stick my fingers in your cunt. _

He began a trail of kisses down her trembling stomach.

_ I’ve wanted to know what you taste like for years. I had a dream that you fucked me to death.  _

He struggled briefly with the fly of her shorts, but soon was able to pull them down her milky-white legs, and discard them on the carpeted floor. She laid a hand on his head, braiding her fingers through his thick, messy hair.

_ I adore you. You infuriate me. Marry me, maybe. Some day.  _

Impatient, he pulled the lacy fabric of her underwear aside and laid his tongue upon her swollen, weeping sex. She gasped and squeezed his head between her thighs.

_ I want you so much it makes me feel like dying. _

He lapped at her, precise and quick, and she found her vision too blurred just then to keep reading.

“Ah!” she squeaked, trying not to be too loud. “D-do you mean it? All those things?”

He hummed some vague sound of affirmation, and slid his hand down, coating his fingers in her. They were so deft and kind, the hands that wrote that letter. She groaned, guttural and satisfied, when he began to thrust his fingers into her. Just like he promised.

It did not take long. His movements were pointed, expert. His tongue so sharp when he spoke, but so sweet when it licked. She felt the quaking in her every bone, felt her head spinning in the whirlwind of love. She could not help it: she nearly yelped as she came. And god, how hungrily he seemed to drink her up. He reached up as she shook and rocked, pinching her nipples as if to overwhelm her with sensation.

He rose from between her thighs, adorably disheveled, hair even more of a rat’s nest than usual, and finally, she had made him smile. 

-

He panted, dragging the back of his hand over his lips, looking at the mess he’d made of her. Her arms splayed, knees shaking, her face flushed and her hair spread about the bed in a fan. He climbed her then, sparing no time, and buried his face in the sweaty curve of her neck.

He hurriedly undid his belt and pulled down the waist of his pants, too desperate to bother undressing, and after a brief glance in her glassy eyes, and a nod of permission, he entered her with a triumphant grunt.

His elbows shook as he struggled to keep himself composed. He had a duty to UA not to disgrace them by being raucous and obscene, but  _ god,  _ how perfect she was. And how sweetly she held him, urging him into her, arms around his back, her head leaning on his. It was a new feeling, this utter lack of contention. He felt safe inside of her. She let out small, hiccup-like gasps each time he tilted his hips into her, each time he felt the wet, hot collapse of her surrounding him. 

It had been a long time since last he’d found himself in bed with a woman, and it had not been so memorable. She had not been so magnificent, nor so loved. He had never written sordid love letters to anyone else, and he wondered if he ever could again.

He looked down at her as he fucked her, hypnotized by the bouncing of her chest and the fluttering of her eyelids. Was loving just the act of rendering one another useless? He ran a hand down her cheek, slowing for a moment.

“Do you love me?” he asked, the words spilling from him before he could stop it. She grinned wide, and pulled him down for a kiss. 

“Obviously,” she said, breathless. He laughed into her lips.

“You’re such a bitch,” he said, his voice too gentle for the words, and he smiled, kissing her again.

“Ooh, I kinda like that,” she said, and she lifted her knees, bringing her legs up to pull him in deeper. 

“Too bad,” he said, and he descended once again upon her neck, mumbling vague sweetness and apology.  _ I love you. I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you, all of it _ . He felt himself on the edge of dissolution, his every nerve begging for the end to come crashing down. “Hh—“ He whined. “Can I come in you?”

The question seemed to thrill her, but she shook her head.

“Okay,” he agreed. “Sweet thing…” It was a daring experiment, to call her little, adoring names, but it only made her hold him harder.

And finally, when she proved too perfect for him to wait any longer, he backed out, holding his cock still, spilling everything he had. On her belly, on her chest. She smiled down at the volume of it.

“That’s my man,” she said as he fell beside her, catching his breath.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m your man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is not the end!!!! there’s a lot to wrap up still but hooooo
> 
> I’m so happy for them? Emi being like Oh yeah be mean and he’s like SIKE I love you


	9. Who Loves Ya, Baby?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of this story! I've had a really great time writing it and I hope you all enjoyed reading!

As the sweat dried, they breathed, and he watched her stomach rise and fall as he laid his heavy head upon her chest. Her hands were busy in his hair, only making the knots worse, only tickling the nape of his neck to the point of shivering. But he didn’t complain. He kissed her skin, the taste of her still fogging from his lips. 

He dabbed at the mess he’d made with a discarded hand towel, and she kissed his forehead to thank him.

“That was incredible,” she said, easing into the pillows, folding her hands beneath her head. Naked as the morning, then, having stripped out of her remaining clothes in favor of cooling off, in favor of showing herself bare to him. In her entirety, she was all the more astounding. She had urged him to remove his shirt, and he lay there bare-chested on his side. 

He felt sheepish at her insistence that it had been so good. He thought it largely due to her and not to him, but still, the way she quaked and shouted…

He took a breath, the bravery of sex having worn off some, and hesitated to tell her what was on his mind.

“What is it, baby?” she said, the word so full and warm in her voice. “You wanna go again?” She curled toward him, running her hands up his chest and behind his neck.

“Soon,” he said, his voice tremulous with the idea of it. He wrapped a hand around her wrist, turned his face to kiss her open palm. “I’m just thinking…”

“Mm?”

“You’ll have to go back to Ketsubutsu soon,” he said, lowering his head onto the pillow, looking at her eye-to-eye. “That might make this hard.”

“Well…” she said, wiggling closer, taking his hand in hers and holding it to her chest. “Let’s define ‘this.’”

He was quiet a moment, wondering if she was playing a game, if this truly had been a long con, or if she wanted him to ask her some question he could not take back. But he felt the cowardice dissipate when she blinked at him, slow like a cat, pleading for an answer.

“...I don’t think I can handle it being anything less than serious,” he admitted. “Now that we’ve...now that it’s…”

She smiled, and he swore her eyes shone with the threat of tears.

“I know,” she said. “I’ve waited a long time for you, Shouta. As for the distance…”

He waited for her solution.

“Well, they have video chat now. So you can still see me naked all the time.”

He snorted, bit his lip, buried his face in her chest.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” he said, but he cupped her breasts as he spoke. “I mean, that’s part of it.”

She sighed at the touch, apparently still reeling from round one.

“We’ll visit. And I trust you.”

“I trust you too.” His voice muffled by her skin. She laughed.

“But we have a few weeks, don’t we? There’s no need to get all sad about it yet.”

“Yeah…” He lifted his head and rested his chin on the curve of her chest.

“Now take off your pants,” she said, frank and sudden.

“Huh?”

“You think you can be so sweet like that and I won’t wanna blow you?”

They made love into the early morning, when they fell asleep talking, confessing thousands of little things they never said before.  _ Your jokes are funny, I just didn’t want you to know I liked you, so I didn’t say anything _ . All punctuated with soft kisses.  _ The way you look so bored all the time...I think that’s what made me want to kiss you, and try to change it _ . In the morning, they would have a lot to answer for. But he couldn’t be bothered to bring it up.

He walked into the classroom the next day in a little bit of a haze, feeling strange from his routine being thrown off. He had slept in Emi’s bed, and used her shower, and was wearing spare clothes he kept around, instead of having gotten ready at home. He wondered if his students could tell that something had changed.

And, of course, Uraraka was sitting in the front row, her chin resting on the palms of her hands, smiling impishly.

“Mr. Aizawa, you’re glowing!” she said.

“And you’re about to earn yourself a C minus,” he said as he took a seat behind the desk. She looked horrified. “It’s fine.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Uraraka?” Bakugou asked, fostering already that little vein in his forehead, so early in the morning. She turned around to look at him, and stammered through the start of an explanation.

“W-well…” 

Shouta leaned back and put his feet up on the desk.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Yaoyorozu said sternly, her eyes closed and her back straight. “We saw him with Ms. Fukukado yesterday. In an intimate way.”

He could feel his eyes rolling to the back of his head. 

“You’re all getting held back a year,” he growled, though the elation he felt had yet to fade, and he hardly meant it.

“Oh my god!” Mineta said, slamming his fists on his desk. “Mr. Aizawa! You are such a lucky man! You have what most men can only dream of!”

“Knock it off,” Shouta said, tossing an errant writing utensil his way. Mineta flinched, his face paling. “Nothing is changing as far as your studies go. Just because I might be in a better mood most of the time doesn’t mean I’ll go any easier on you guys.”

Most of his students nodded.

“That said, I…” He tapped his fingers on the armrest of his chair. “Okay, this doesn’t leave this room, but I guess it’s important for you to know how happy I am.”

“Then why do you still look...like that?” Uraraka said, doing her best impression of his exhausted, deadpan face.

Instead of bothering to retort, he allowed himself a fond, if somewhat deriding, smile, and rolled his eyes. He quelled any giddiness he felt, and began the lesson.

-

The day of her departure was a Sunday. She had already moved her things out of the dorms, and was storing them in a stack in his apartment. She stayed there for the weekend, desperate to be close. They slept each night entwined in his bed, and awoke each morning with soft, slow, earth-shattering love.

She sat on his bed, drowning in his bathrobe, and watched him as he sat at his desk. He had his hair tied back, which she’d come to love the look of. Not all men were so keen to accessorize. He was adorable, all scruffy in his pajamas, drinking a cup of tea with one leg bent up into his office chair. Her chest felt heavy with impending grief, to know that she would soon be leaving. But it was so hard to feel sad, when looking at him.

“There’s a late train,” he said, scrolling through the public transit website. “So you can stay later than the bus that’s taking your students back.”

She thought about it, tapping her nails on her teacup. Her silence bid him to turn around.

“No pressure,” he assured her. “We agreed--”

“Our jobs before anything else,” she recited, smiling admiringly. “I do think I’d better head back with my students, Shouta.”

“Yeah,” he said, closing out the window on his laptop. “I thought so too, but I didn’t want you to think I was in a hurry for you to leave.”

She grinned and set her teacup down on his bedside table, making to get up. She went to him, bathrobe hanging open, and he spun in his chair to face her. She stepped between his knees and held his head to her chest.

“I know, baby,” she said. She bit her lip to feel his hands on her, as it seemed they could not stop themselves from touching. He fondled her as they spoke. “It’s funny, I don’t doubt that you love me, even after everything.”

“I would hope not.”

“Mm…” she said, her toes curling. “I’m gonna miss you.”

He ceased his caresses and wrapped his arms around her waist. 

“Me too.”

She climbed onto him, and they said one last writhing, moaning goodbye. 

The UA students had gathered to send off the others, and every student from Ketsubutsu was piled into the bus. He helped her load her belongings into the bottom compartment. They spoke quietly to one another.

“You gonna kiss me in front of all these kids?” she asked, coquettish and baiting.

“Do you want me to?” he asked. She watched as he pulled down the door to the compartment, thirsting still, seeing how the veins in his arms strained, hearing how he grunted from the effort.

“They’re expecting it.”

“Might not be professional…”

“Who gives a shit?”

She grinned at him, waiting, her hands behind her back, swaying girlishly.

“God, I love you,” he mumbled, low enough that no one but her would hear. 

“I love you too,” she said.

He kissed her as if sending her off to war. Arms wrapped tightly, dipping her back some like dancing. It wasn’t a very long kiss, nor a very sloppy one, but still it earned some hollering from both sets of students. He held her hand until the very last second, until she was too far up the steps onto the bus to hold on any longer. She waved at him from the window and blew him a kiss.

She did not cry until they pulled away. And as her students comforted her, she still managed to laugh, so overcome with the joy of love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might write some more of them, what do you think? Maybe something about the long distance dating or him taking care of Eri???

**Author's Note:**

> Love is stored in the Aizawa
> 
> Comments always appreciated!!


End file.
